Tobacco, Pipes, and Race in Colonial Virginia investigates the economic and social power that surrounded the production and use of tobacco pipes in colonial Virginia and the difficulty of correlating objects with cultural identities. A common artifact in colonial period sites, previous publications on this subject have focused on the decorations on the pipes or which ethnic group produced and used the pipes, “European,” “African,” or “Indian.” This book weaves together new interpretations, analytical techniques, classification schemes, historical background, and archaeological methods and theory. Special attention is paid to the subfield of African diaspora research to display the complexities of understanding this class of material culture. This fascinating study is accessible to the undergraduate reader, as well as to graduate students and scholars.

Clay tobacco pipes are a unique form of artifact that has been recovered from the earliest colonial period sites to those of the early twentieth century. Archaeologists have found this artifact category useful for interpretive purposes due to their rapid technological and typological change, decoration, and maker's marks. Lack of adequate reporting in older site reports precludes a wide range of interpretive values intrinsic to this artifact category. A detailed study of tobacco pipe assemblages from the Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains, in an 1800 to 1890s time frame, demonstrates the interpretive value of this category on an intrasite, regional, and interregional basis. The detailed analysis given the pipes and pipe assemblages provides a historical background that encompasses the artifacts, the manufacturers, the sites, the relationships of the sites, and their place in the development of these regions. These tobacco pipes reflect the marketing and trade histories of these regions as well as many of the cultural subgroups.